Question: Can ham radios receive the same channels as those on a scanner?

[WA0CBW]

Setting the radio to receive PL tones may help to silence the noise created by intermod and natural inteference. It doesn't reduce or stop the interference is just silences it until the proper tone is received and then opens the squelch.. However, not all repeaters transmit PL.
BB

 

[AeroMechAZ]

Question

You can set your ham radio to ignore the PL and listen to the channel. Most ham radios allow you to receive with or without the PL tone. If a repeater requires a PL tone then you need to set your transmitter to send the correct tone to activate the repeater. You can set your receiver either to listen for the proper tone or just listen to anything on the channel. Check your user manual on how to program your radio.

Thanks for the quick reply. That answered my question. Also settles a (minor) issue I had with a friend who recently got his Ham ticket (I'm scheduled to take the Tech. test locally in May).